The investigators of the third garrison division of the Military Prosecutor’s Office have charged a murdered soldier with four RA Criminal Code articles simultaneously: with Article 139 on “Action of sexual character”, Article 182 on “Extortion”, Article 359 on “Violation of Statutory Relations,” and Article 360 on “Offense of a Military Servicemen at the Place of Military Service.”
The basis is the testimonial of one person, M.M., whom the investigator describes in his decisions the following way: “Careless, worried, silent, timid, lonely, insane,” “a slight degree of mental retardation has been noticed.” And, when the alleged killer was sent to the army, the military-medical commission wrote “insane” in his documents. There are two results of expertise in the case with controversial outcomes. According to the first, the assassin realized what he was doing; according to the second, he had been under the influence.
The ugly details of the scandalous history
M.M. regularly was subjected to sexual harassment in one of military units of the Defense Army for long time. We do not publish real data of M.M. on the request of his family. He gave confessionary testimony immediately after the incident. He claimed that Adibekyan has harassed, beaten, extorted 5,000 AMD ($10) and perfume, and on the day of his death he has “cursed his mom,” which became the last drop of his patience.
When M.M. and Narek had been alone in the combat duty location, he had secretly loaded his rifle and killed him with two separate shootings. In reality, “if he passed by and someone slapped him, he wouldn’t even turn his head to answer,”: this is how the co-villagers describe M.M.
According to the forensic conclusion, in the palms of M.M.’s hands, indeed, there were traces of burns, injuries around the mouth, cheeks, nose, testicles and rectum, intestine traumas and traces of intestinal penetration. Investigators consider it proven that all these injuries have led to a soldier, Narek Adibekyan, who is no longer able to say anything on his behalf.
Narek himself is a victim
Adibekyan’s lawyer, Hayarpi Sargsyan, is convinced that the incident has nothing to do with the official version. “M.M. has no involvement in the murder of Narek Adibekyan, and Narek — in the case of torture of M.M. One testimony is insufficient to justify such charges against a person. Narek and M.M. should be acquitted, “said Adibekyan’s lawyer Hayarpi Sargsyan. By examining the conclusions of forensic examinations, she and criminalist Ruben Martirosyan discovered many investigative errors.
For example, he had noticed that the shell from substance proofs package has been replaced with bullets (with the capsule it was possible to determine whose weapon has been fired); in other words, the material evidence content had been “edited”. Hayarpi Sargsyan filed a complaint to the prosecutor’s office accusing the investigators of falsifying the crime scene. The SIS examined the complaint and decided that investigators were “confused,” they investigated the crime scene improperly because it was dark.
The SIS concluded: investigator has been “confused”
Ruben Martirosyan, a military criminal expert, says: “SIS Investigator Kalajyan did not even vouchsafed to interrogate the persons involved in the crime scene investigation. He just based everything on the
arguments of the investigators that it was dark and that they had no intention to allow fraud, but these frauds were caused due to confusion. So, it turns out that negligence reigns in the investigative department, the investigators do whatever they want, there are no normal specialists and prosecutorial supervision in the investigative department. The crimes we have detected in the case the supervising body had to see before us. ”
After examining Adibekyan’s lawyer Hayarpi Sargsyan’s report on crime where facts are presented based on expert conclusions, the prosecutor’s office replied that there was no reason even to initiate disciplinary proceedings.
“They insist that there was a confusion. They did not try to find out who had been in the crime scene, no fingerprints were taken, not one but 30 bullets at once were added to the package of evidence that were not mentioned on the package. Such mistakes cannot be a result of conventional confusion. This is not a confusion but an elimination of evidence.
Investigator or serial writer?
According to Ruben Martirosyan, six shells were detected at Narek and M.M.’s incident scene and along with two rifles they were sent for examination. Experts have concluded that four shells were fired by M.M. and two — by an unknown person. Who was that “Mr. X?” It is logical to suppose that the answer to this question could have lighted the circumstances of the murder, perhaps revealing the real murderer. But it is obvious that the investigators have no such purpose.
“This is lack of respect for the soldiers and the army in general”
And so, according to the official version, there were two shooters on the scene of Adibekyan’s murder: Narek and the victim of sexual violence M.M. As a result of the investigation conducted by the Journalists for Human Rights NGO, it was found out that at least three guns were used at Adibekyan’s murder site and now it can be considered proven that at least 4 or more guns were shot at the scene, that is, a skirmish took place there , which was attended by 4 people.
The head of the organization Zhanna Alexanyan concludes: Military investigative bodies are in deep degradation. They are conducting poor, faulty investigations. Narek has served in the Russian army and was drafted into the Armenian army in violation of the law, and then he was killed. Instead of revealing the case, they put their inability and inactivity on the dead person. This is lack of respect for the soldiers and the army in general. They have killed the soldier and are now blaming him.”
According to the testimony of M.M., he has shot 16 separate shots in Narek’s direction. But only six shells were found at the scene . The shells do not have wings, they fall up to one meter away from a shooter, so where are the remaining ten shells? The prosecutor’s office did not carry out proper control over this case, did not hold responsible the military unit of the Ministry of Defense, the investigators concealed the crime, and all these brought to the fact that the preliminary investigation is in a deadlock.
The only way to get out of this situation is for the aforementioned bodies to cease concealing the crimes, punish all those responsible in the military unit, the investigative body and the Ministry of Defense. Only this will abolish the criminal morality defaming the Armenian army”.
Syuzan Simonyan